The National University Hospital has responded with a statement to an incident where a pregnant woman was made to wait for 2 hours at an emergency department and ended up losing her baby.
NUH’s CEO, professor Aymeric Lim, said on 24 March that the woman was admitted to the emergency department on 15 March at about 10.35pm for bleeding and was attended to immediately.
She was noted to be stable and that he bleeding had subsided whilst en route to the hospital.
Lim added that her vital signs were normal and even though she said that she was having pain, her pain score was assessed as 2/10 by the nurses.
He added that the emergency department was experiencing a high patient load at the time and she was placed next to the nursing station to monitor her.
Lim said that patients who are in labour are admitted to the labour ward upon admission, but as she was in early labour, they had arranged to transfer her to the labour ward ASAP because it was full at the time.
Lim added that “we are sorry” that she waited for 2 hours and “this should not have been th3e case in this circumstance”.
He said that “we should have done more to provide closer monitoring and care and to update the patient of her condition and the transfer”.
She was immediately attended to at the labour ward and cared for by 2 senior consultants.
Lim also said that at the moment, all pregnant woman over 36 weeks who are Covid positive are admitted to the three public hospitals for care and delivery, and he said that it has been “challenging to maintain the hospital’s high standards for care amidst the Covid outbreak.
He added that they will “review the process” of managing pregnant patients admitted into the emergency department so such incidents do not happen again.
He also added that they are “deeply saddened” by the family’s loss.